Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3) (23 page)

-40-

“So
that’s
what’s at the end of this rainbow,” Rumbold said to no one in particular.

The sight of what we’d found filled all of us with unease. There, at a stationary La Grange point above the dead world we’d passed by, was a Stroj construct.

The machine could only be one thing. It was an artificial bridge projector. I’d actually encountered one of these structures on a previous voyage.

Bridge projectors had only been theoretical until I’d found one a year ago. The machine looked like a conical web-work of struts. It was a basket-shaped structure decorated with auto-cannons. It had the power—if this unit still operated—to create temporary artificial bridges between star systems.

“If we get too close, it will fire on us,” I admonished. “Bring us around in a slow pass, Rumbold. Keep dropping our speed.”

He glanced at me shaking his head, but he followed orders.

“How’s the match on the coordinates he gave us, Durris?” I asked.

“Perfect, sir,” he said. “It can’t be a coincidence. Perez wanted us to find this projector. This machine must be what the map was leading us to find.”

“Yes…” I said thoughtfully. “It fits. Admiral Perez—whatever his real name was—we know he was a Stroj agent. Only the Stroj have this tech. But
why
did he give us a map directing us to this point?”

No one answered me immediately. The structure slid off to one side of
Defiant
as we circled it, scanning it from every angle. As far as we could tell, it was identical in every respect to the first one we’d found so long ago.

“Let’s go over what we do know,” Durris suggested.

I nodded for him to continue.

“First, this is a Stroj system,” he said. “That planet is in the liquid-water zone, and by all indications it once held a colony. There had to be Stroj living down there, or people who the Stroj had previously conquered.”

“I would suggest they were the former,” I said. “I doubt the Stroj would have fought a serious battle for this system if it had been populated by normal human colonists. I also doubt they’d place one of their projectors in a system that wasn’t fully under their control.”

“Agreed,” Durris said. “Now then, as to why the hell we’re here in the first place—”

“You mean, why Perez wanted to get us to come here?”

“Yes… How he could possibly think we could save this colony?”

I shook my head. “That wasn’t his plan,” I said.

He frowned at me. “You don’t think Perez sent us out here to stop this destruction?”

“No, not at all. Think of the timeline. Even if he knew this system was in trouble in real time, he couldn’t have expected us to get here fast enough to change the outcome. Our voyage took over a month’s time. We were sure to arrive late and discover only ruins.”

“Hmm…” Durris said thoughtfully. “I hadn’t considered that, but you’re right of course, Captain. Then why did he send us here?”

I stepped toward the image of the web-work structure which hung in the air over his tactical table. My hand grazed the image, making it waver and spin.

“There’s only one logical answer,” I said. “He wanted us to operate this machine.”

Durris looked alarmed and fascinated at the same time.

Rumbold, who’d been listening in while pretending not to, swallowed hard and suffered an immediate coughing fit.

“But sir…” Durris said. “We don’t know how to operate that thing.”

“Last time we managed it,” I said. “We simply flew into it bearing a key given to us by the Stroj.”

“Right… but we don’t have one now.”

“Obviously not.”

Durris stared at the image again. He stood beside me, and his mouth fell open a fraction.

“You aren’t suggesting we should go aboard that thing’s control module to explore it?”

“How else can we operate it? There’s no one else here.”

“But sir… the Beta ships are closing in.”

“Then we’d better get a move on, don’t you think? You didn’t seriously think I’d come all the way out here and not even check out the end of the trail, did you?”

“No Captain,” he said in defeat. “I’d dared to hope, but I can see how that wouldn’t look good in our reports.”

We got moving after that. In a surprisingly short amount of time, I found myself boarding an assault shuttle packed with marines. Durris and several of his best back-up officers manned
Defiant’s
command deck.

Aboard the shuttle, besides Lieutenant Morris and myself, was a disgruntled Director Vogel and a single variant.

“I don’t understand why I’m on this mission,” Vogel complained.

“Because you’ve got the best engineering mind on my ship,” I said simply.

“And K-19?”

“He’s coming along to do any repair work we might encounter,” I said. “We can’t wait around for a human crew to do it. By the time they suit up and select the right smart-wrench, the Beta cruisers will be all over us.”

Vogel looked like he smelled something unpleasant. Possibly he did, as we were all sealed up tightly in our spacesuits.

“What if this structure’s automated defenses destroy us?” he demanded.

I shrugged. “Then we die, I suppose.”

He seemed to find this answer unsatisfactory, but I was done talking to him.

The shuttle launched, and Vogel splayed out his hands in alarm. It was the gesture of someone who thought they were falling.

A sudden whip-like arm shot out of the rear chamber of the shuttle and touched Vogel’s chest. For an instant, I thought the man had been struck dead. I reached for my sword, and beside me, Morris drew his pistol.

“That thing hit him, Captain!” Morris shouted.

My hand came up in a flat, stopping gesture. “Stand down, Morris. He’s all right.”

To demonstrate my point, K-19’s arm retreated with a clicking noise, almost as fast as it had appeared. Vogel sat firmly in his seat where the variant had left him.

“It’s okay,” gasped the Director. “I’m fine. K-19 was merely concerned for my safety. Remember, I’m old enough to be your great, great grandfather, Sparhawk.”

“So what?” Morris demanded.

Vogel gave him a stern glance. “So, my bones are thin. They will break like ice if I take a fall.”

Morris leaned back, nostrils flaring in disgust. “Sick little glass man. What a way to live.”

Vogel chuckled. “We’ll see what you say when your body starts to age. You’ll be hooked on Rejuv before you hit fifty.”

Morris glared at the ceiling. He didn’t answer the older man. Perhaps that was because we all knew Vogel was right. Who could withstand the siren’s call of extended life?

“Director,” I said, “what’s our plan upon arrival?”

He looked at me in wonderment. “I thought this expedition was your idea.”

“It was. I’m in overall command. But you are in command of the scientific details. You have one hour to get this station—if it is a station—up and running. One hour. Use your time wisely.”

Vogel thought about it. “We have to find the central repository, the data core.”

“Why?”

“That’s where the location of our destination must be. It’s got to be very complex. You can’t run a bridge projector using a computer scroll, you know. Their data core must be one of the best in history, if you think about it.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“The process I understand in theory—you have to understand that I’ve never built one. But it works by generating a detailed mathematical model of the target star system. The bridge generated can’t go just anywhere, it has to go somewhere it knows. Somewhere it can model in this station’s data core.”

I frowned, but nodded. I understood some of what he was saying.

“So that’s how it does it?” I asked. “By modeling the destination? How does that create a bridge?”

“It doesn’t, it selects the destination. I read about projection theory back in college. Funny to think I’m out here now, investigating a real operating unit. We never thought machines like this would make it off the drawing board.”

“They’re real, Director,” I said, “very real. But again, how does the bridge itself form?”

Vogel dragged his thin finger over a nearby patch of the shuttle’s hull. The smart metal responded by lighting up. On it, a diagram of the star system appeared. He tapped the central binary star, and the twin stellar objects appeared to flare up in response.

“See that?” he said.

Morris, who’d been quietly listening all along, scoffed. “You’re just tapping graphics with your bony finger.”

“Yes, of course I am. But this is depicting a legitimate model. Can you imagine the jump in stellar output if what I’d just done was real? Billions of terajoules would have been released. That’s the kind of power a bridge projector requires.”

Morris and I were both impressed with this answer.

“You mean,” Morris said, “you have to generate something like the Carrington Event, or the Cataclysm back home, to power this thing?”

“Not that bad,” Vogel returned. It would probably be focused, and it would do little more than generate a long day of static on the world nearby. But yes, these two stars power the projector. There’s no other source locally or remotely that could do it. At least, there’s nothing else that we know of.”

We eyed the image of the twin suns depicted on the hull until they faded to dull red, then umber then vanished entirely.

Could Vogel be right? Were we going to have to unleash that kind of raw power to operate this thing?

I was impressed and concerned by the idea at the same time.

-41-

We reached the station without incident. The auto-cannons tracked us throughout our approach, but they never fired. Vogel said it was due to a software patch he’d installed in our friend-or-foe system.

Morris privately told me he figured the old bastard had made up this sorry excuse, and the truth was we’d gotten lucky. Maybe the shuttle was too small to be classified as a threat, or the fact it was unarmed had tricked the AI into letting us pass.

Whatever the case, the pod-like control module was located where the spider would be if this were a true web—down near the small end of the cone. We reached the module and piled out onto a large deck that was open to space.

Our magnetics clacked as we crossed the open decking. It was a sound heard only inside our helmets. We reached an airlock, engaged the emergency override—and we were inside.

Morris and his men were on high alert. They sprang ahead of us securing every hatchway before we marched farther into the operations center.

In comparison to the overall structure, the control module was small, but from the point of view of a single human it was quite roomy. It contained at least a kilometer of curving, dark passages that strung out ahead of us.

Each chamber we entered lit up, detecting our presence, but there were no pressurized regions. The entire command center seemed to be abandoned.

We found broken equipment rolling around on the floors and abandoned junk hanging from the ceiling in cargo nets. Here and there, a slick patch of hard ice from accumulated condensation showed where a human might have caught a breath in the past. But most of the center was hard vacuum and seemed derelict.

“Looks like they grabbed whatever they could and abandoned this place in a hurry,” I said, running my gloves over a ridge of hard ice that coated a railing. “Any signs of life?”

“None, Captain,” Vogel said. He was beaming ahead of us continuously with a handheld scanner. “This place appears to be dead.”

“Is that good or bad?” Morris asked.

“Good, from the point of personal safety,” Vogel told him, “but bad in terms of getting this station into operating condition. The Beta ships are closing, and we don’t have much time to get these systems fired up.”

“He’s right,” I said, “team, press ahead, double-time. Stop checking every doorway. Get us to the control center immediately.”

Obeying me, Morris’ troopers trotted ahead into the darkness. I heard their scuffling and hard breathing over our linked com sets. They grunted with effort as they worked open frozen hatches, kicked aside fallen equipment barring our path and generally hustled forward. Behind them, we walked at a steady pace.

When we’d marched about a hundred meters into the structure, everything changed. To my shock, a firefight broke out ahead of us.

Rippling fire lit up the passageway. I knew it was ours by the color and the rippling nature of the beams. They flashed as brightly as an arc-welder in the cramped, dark spaces.

“Get down!” Morris shouted, pressing Vogel and I out of his way.

He plunged ahead of us into the darkness, shouting and demanding reports. His marines seemed too busy to respond immediately, and he unleashed a stream of profanity.

I aimed my own PAG down the passageway Morris was advancing along, but I stayed with Vogel. If the director went down now, there would be no way we could accomplish the mission.

“Stroj, Captain!” Morris called back to me a minute later. “We’re engaged with them up here. They opened up when my men passed through an intersection. Two of my boys were cut down.”

“Can you handle it?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “We’ll get them. Throwing out the drones now.”

The gunfire subsided as both sides took cover. I couldn’t see, but I knew the marines were busy releasing crawlers, tiny machines like caterpillars, that would seek the enemy in the dark.

After another half-minute, tiny explosions flashed here and there ahead of us. I saw rather than heard them. I dared to grin. The crawlers had reached their targets and self-destructed.

My elation was short-lived, however. A huge hand came up from behind me and attempted to rip my gun out of my hand. Powerful fingers like steel gripped my gun, wrenching it away.

A face loomed inside my assailant’s spacesuit. The suit was misshapen, as if it held an abomination rather than a true man, but it was the face itself that I recognized.

A man—no, a creature—who I hadn’t encountered for a long time glared at me in the half-light. He was intent, feral. His skin was shriveled like a mummy’s flesh, and one of his eyes had been replaced by a darting, swiveling camera on a stalk that poked out of the left socket.

The face was that of a Stroj—but not just any Stroj. It was none other than Lorn, a pirate who I’d had dealings with in the past.

Vogel tried to help, but he was out of his league. His weak arms flailed at Lorn’s back. I doubt the monster even knew he was there.

“Lorn!” I shouted. “Stand down. You owe me!”

I spoke on an open channel, hoping both to distract the Stroj and alert Morris to what was going on in the rear ranks of the expedition.

“Silence, Sparhawk,” Lorn responded. “It’s been too long. I’ve coveted your flesh for years, and I won’t be dissuaded from taking my sample now.”

My elbow flashed up, attempting to crack his faceplate. The gambit failed, but he did stagger back for a second. My pistol flew away in a flat spin, bouncing off the passage walls.

“Stop struggling,” Lorn said. “I don’t want you to injure yourself or to force me to do it. I want your skin intact for my trophy.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” I said, and I drew my sword.

In an instant, it flared into life. We were too close to fence, but I was able to slash between the two of us. Several of Lorn’s fingers flew free, scattering over the passageway.

“Damn you!” Lorn said, lunging to close again. “If you force me to kill you, your flesh will begin to decay.”

“Get off me, or I’ll hack off limbs next,” I said.

My shielding was active now. Lorn was having difficulty gaining a hold on my body. He staggered back, glanced at Vogel and then lunged for him.

With a quick thrust, I stabbed him in the back. My sizzling sword sent up a wisp of hot vapors which froze quickly in the airless passageway.

Lorn cursed and writhed, but he captured Vogel, who made mewling sounds of distress.

“Ah…” Lorn said, turning to face me. “I’ve got your oldster, Sparhawk. If you pull your sword out of my back and give me my trophy, I’ll let him go.”

Vogel’s eyes pleaded with me. I could see he was terrified and probably injured. Lorn gripped him with such force that it was grinding the director’s fragile bones together.

I knew from long experience with Lorn and his kind that negotiations were always traps. The moment I agreed to give him something, he’d immediately demand more, until he demanded so much I was unable to provide it.

Cutting this process short, I yanked my blade out of his tough body and brought it in line with this throat. His hand came up to grab the blade, but he didn’t dare. Worms of plasma and force ran up and down the length of it.

I could see his eyes inside his helmet, through his faceplate. Lit by the glow of my sword, his features writhed in hate.

“I’ll rip his head right off,” he threatened. “Back away!”

Vogel squeaked, making an unintelligible plea.

My blade didn’t waver, but instead moved closer to Lorn’s face.

“Yield,” I said. “Surrender or I’ll kill you. The old man is less than nothing to me. He’s been an irritant since we left Earth.”

Hissing in disappointment, Lorn tossed Vogel aside like a broken doll.

“Damn,” he said, “I thought he might be a cherished relative.”

It occurred to me that Lorn’s initial attack would have been much more effective if he’d simply attempted to kill me. He had control of my gun for a moment, and he could have used it and ended the entire affair.

But I knew from experience that wasn’t how his kind viewed the world. They were creatures of status and personal glory. Killing me would be an accomplishment, but it would gain him little among his own people unless he managed to bring home a pristine scrap of my flesh.

To see some living part of me sewn into his patchwork body—that was his goal. Such a trophy would provide him with a boost in status on his home world that earthlings could barely understand.

“Are you all right?” I asked Vogel.

The old man climbed to his feet, his limbs shaking.

“I’ll live,” he announced.

“I thought you said you didn’t care about him,” Lorn complained, nursing his injured back. He slapped a patch on the hole in his spacesuit, and it sealed itself almost immediately with smart-gels. “And I thought you didn’t like to lie, Sparhawk.”

Lorn dropped to the floor to scramble for his lost fingers.

“I don’t,” I said, kicking the last of the severed digits his way. “He
has
been an irritant since the day I met him. Tell him, Vogel.”

At that name, Lorn whirled and crouched. He looked at Vogel and assumed a predatory stance.

“Lorn…?” I said. “Stand down. We can talk.”

“I must have him!” Lorn said, ignoring me. “He’s the inventor of the variants! A villain whose flesh represents inconceivable value!”

Lorn stalked forward reaching for Vogel who retreated like a scuttling crab.

But before Lorn could grab hold of him, or I could thrust a sword into the Stroj’s back, K-19 arrived on the scene.

We’d left K-19 behind on the shuttle because his bulk was too great to easily navigate the passages. After all, they’d been designed for normal-sized humans. Apparently, he’d taken it upon himself to join us after listening to the sounds of battle over the com system.

The variant’s whip-like arms flashed. Two snaps blurred in the passage, and they took down both of Lorn’s legs from behind.

With his legs hanging by threads, the Stroj fell on the deck. But even then, his outstretched claw-like fingers made grasping, greedy motions in Vogel’s direction.